


Liege

by leiascully



Category: Dark Is Rising Sequence - Susan Cooper
Genre: M/M, relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-04
Updated: 2017-11-04
Packaged: 2019-01-29 10:54:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12629445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully





	Liege

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eirenical (chibi1723)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chibi1723/gifts).



There is something of the High Magic still about Bran. Will feels it every time they meet. Nothing in the world could make Bran ordinary. Despite his own elevated position, Will yearns to unravel the lingering mysteries of the boy who might have been king. Fortunately, it's easy to convince their families that one or the other should spend the holidays visiting. Will prefers to go to Wales; Bran is out of place among his jovial family, although his brothers and sisters treat Bran almost no differently than Will, for all of Bran's strangeness. Will thinks that Bran prefers Wales as well. Something about the Stantons reminds him of what he's lost. Bran has never had a family like Will's. Will understands. The Stantons' affection is simultaneously sustaining and suffocating. 

"How do you ever leave?" Bran says one night into the dark of Will's room, turned away from Will on the other side of the bed.

"They're always here when I come back," Will says simply.

His family welcomes Bran into their loving chaos. Barbara bakes for him if she's home. James shows him how to mow the lawn and they play football with Robin, kicking a ball flecked with grass. Paul sits down and plays duets with Bran, the notes of the harp and the flute twining around each other. Will watches with satisfaction and wistfulness. It is clear that Bran is more suited to the mountains with their steep slopes and lonely shoulders. All the considerable kindness the Stantons can muster is not enough to bridge the gap the world has put between itself and Bran, the boy from another time. Most holidays, Will takes the train through the mountains to Aberdyfi. With the Grey King banished, the hills are nothing but lovely, all gorse and green grass and the drifting shapes of sheep and cattle, light and dark against the fields. 

Aunt Jen and Uncle David and Rhys and John Rowlands are always glad to see Will. Even Owen Davies smiles at him, once in a while, a gesture rusty from disuse that catches in the corners. They begin to speak Welsh to him, and Will masters even the ll, more splosh and less huffing puffing train. 

Among the mountains, Will feels fully an Old One. There is some magic to the wildness of it, the untamed edges. The land may be fenced in with wire and hedges, but it is clear somehow that no one owns the mountains, whatever the deeds may say. There are still more sheep trails than roads, more beasts than people. And Bran - Bran almost seems to remember, standing straight among the rocks, the wind ruffling his white hair. Bran is part of the legends of this land. Out on the mountains, his posture grows straighter. The arrogance he wears in town shifts into a calm confidence, an unconscious mastery. Bran is himself when they are alone, all the miracles and contradictions of himself, and Will savors each moment of it as a gift. 

There is no one else now with whom Will can be himself, the Old One and the boy at once. With the Old Ones of Buckinghamshire, he is the youngest of a wise old circle, removed from the concerns of men. After the victory at the tree, they have little to say to each other, although a warmth fills Will when they meet, the pleasure of a job well-done and the sweet peace that follows. With his family and at school, Will is the youngest of the Stantons, another round rosy face in a crowd of them, and if he knows a little too much, there's the excuse of all his older siblings passing down their wisdom. But at Clywyd, with Bran, despite Bran's blithe amnesia, Will is all the things he is, as if nothing in his life is contradictory. There is a sweet relief in it, a burden laid down for a while. 

Will was marked once by the grip of Bran's hand, the hard pressure of Bran's fingertips as they cowered in the Lost Land, hiding from the Mari Llwyd as it clattered toward them. The bruises healed, but some part of him still bears the brand. He thinks idly of Carn March Arthur, the little plaque that labels the place where the great king left his mark. He should have his own plaque for the moment he fully realized how it would be between him and Bran for the rest of their lives. Like Merriman and Arthur, he is sworn to his lord. Bran may have foresworn his birthright, but the High Magic has never entirely left him, the power like a mantle waiting to be slipped back over Bran's square shoulders. There is something in him that Will yields to, joyfully and effortlessly, as he has every minute since he first saw the raven boy, the one foretold.

Over the years, their bond has only grown stronger. Between holidays, they have written letters or called each other, complaining about their studies, confiding in each other about crushes and first kisses. Will has a girlfriend for a little while; Bran inspires a series of admirers who never manage to inspire much in him. "They like me because I'm different," he writes to Will, "and then they get frustrated because I'm never not different." Will writes back, something about how between his own bland looks and Bran's uniqueness, they average out into one ordinary boy. 

He is, as always, at the service of his lord. 

\+ + + + 

The years go by in a blur: they are teenagers in school blazers, tumbling each other down the hills the same way the young rams do, and then they're in college and then they're at university. They are taller, though Will is never tall, and stronger and wiser and a little bit reckless, Bran because he's Bran and Will from the immensity of a power that has no further use in this world. Will studies archaeology. It isn't fair, he knows, given that there are few claims he can't investigate, but he's had a decade of practice now negotiating the world of men as one outside it. Bran is studying law. It suits him. His inborn authority, his practiced non-expressions, and the set-apartness of him are less remarkable among the rest of the law students, who all seem to believe themselves heirs to some legendary prowess. 

After school, they live together in an apartment in Cardiff. It seems natural. Will is working in research for a museum; he specializes in researching Arthurian and Roman ruins and artifacts. Bran is doing whatever it is that baby lawyers do, toiling away in a government building, settling land disputes and reviewing deeds. Will teases him about the Welsh chip on his shoulder when Bran complains about English people buying country estates and building chalets in the mountains. Bran cheerfully retorts about the creeping English and their encroachment on the proud Welsh people. 

"Inch by inch, English, you nibble away at our land," Bran says, poking at sausages sizzling in a pan as Will makes toast.

"Hark at you," Will says comfortably, "a regular Owain Glyndwr."

"Someone has to repel your invasion," Bran tells him, his voice arch but his eyes twinkling.

"You never have yet," Will says, and lunges at him. Bran catches him around the waist and they wrestle each other, laughing, to the floor, Will pinned under Bran's wiry weight. They are both breathless, flushed and gasping. Will pushes up against Bran, but cannot shift him. Bran's eyes gleam as he presses Will's hands to the floor, his fingers splayed between Will's.

"Now I have you where I want you, English," he says, "and what will I do with you?"

"What indeed," Will says, gazing up into Bran's golden eyes. The playful energy between them shifts; like the breeze before a storm, there is something electric in it. Bran's pupils are wide, swallowing up the flecked amber of the irises, and it isn't entirely a surprise when Bran leans down and kisses him. It feels, to Will, like the finding of the Signs, like the music of the golden harp: something foretold, something a long time coming. It's the resolution of a sustained chord. It's the moment the mistletoe fell from the Midsummer Tree into Merriman's hands and all their centuries of planning coalesced into a white dove against the black sky: a victory, dearly bought and centuries in the making. They have been on the path to this moment since they met; like the Old Ways, Will has followed it all unknowing, and yet, his body has always been certain. It rises against Bran's and Bran does not yield, but pushes back against Will's, until they are pressed together on the floor of their kitchen, gasping into each other's mouths as sausage sizzles on the stove.

"Ah," Will says as Bran pulls back, his white hair brushing against Will's face.

"'Ah'," Bran says back to him. "Is that all you have to say, after all this time?"

Will reaches up and cups his hands around Bran's pale face, pulling him back down. Together, they weave another sort of magic. The push and pull between them is familiar and new all at once. Will has not felt so giddy since his first birthday as an Old One.

"That's settled, then," Bran says, helping Will up off the floor.

"I suppose it is," Will says, squeezing Bran's fingers.

The sausages are burnt and the toast has gone cold, but they eat it all anyway, staring at each other in amused wonderment. 

\+ + + + 

In their flat, there is more fealty than service. They bring each other cups of tea and split up the chores. In bed, neither of them is lord or master. They embrace as equals, either of them taking charge as the moment suits. But inside Will's heart, in Bran's eyes, burns a flame as bright and warm as the candles lit by the High Magic, inextinguishable. Will thinks of the words that Merriman spoke at the Dark's challenge: loving bonds are a magic stronger and higher even than the High Magic, something finer than any other power can forge. His love for Bran, his love for his family: these links are stronger than the chain hammered for the signs by the smith of the Light. 

"Will," Bran says one night in bed as they're lying next to each other. Will turns toward him, touching his fingertips to Bran's bare shoulder. "How did we meet?"

"I had been sick," Will says. "My parents sent me to Clywyd to convalesce."

"I remember that," Bran says, "but there was something more."

Will stays quiet. Inside, he's singing like the strings of a harp, but there are rules he cannot break.

"I dream about it sometimes," Bran says. "Something about ravens, and Craig y Adern. I dream about trees and towers. Sometimes I'm holding a sword."

"That's awfully Freudian," Will says, and hates himself just a little for having to make light of it. Eirias was better than a joke. Bran saved the world, and yet, he can never know. 

"Will," Bran says, "what happened to Cafall?"

"Caradog Pritchard," Will says,unable to keep the venom from his voice. "He shot your dog because he thought Cafall had killed a sheep."

"There was more to it," Bran says, his brows drawn together. "Wasn't there?"

Will sighs. "There's always more to it," he says, because he cannot lie to Bran, his lover, his liege lord. He is grateful that Merriman and the High Magic allowed the other four at least this glimpse of the great work they all accomplished together, but all the same, it makes things harder. Maybe he should have gone with the rest of the Old Ones to the castle in the orchards, but then what would his parents have thought? No magic could sever those loving bonds and erase him entirely from their memories. His family would have remembered, and he would not have had them live with the grief of believing he'd died. 

He misses desperately the days when Bran knew all he knew and more, when Bran was his confidant and his commander. But time moves on. At least he is still by Bran's side.

"Pritchard was not in his right mind," Will says at last. It is a kind interpretation and not the whole truth, but it is as much as he can give. 

"There are things I remember as if they were still happening," Bran says, "and things that are just fog. Am I in my right mind, Will?"

"As right as can be," Will assures him. 

"Hmm," Bran says, but he reaches out to Will and folds him in his arms.

\+ + + + 

From time to time, the Drews visit, singly or all at once. Only Simon seems flummoxed by the obvious connection between Will and Bran, and even he just raises an eyebrow and accepts it with a shrug.

"Honestly, it seems inevitable," he says. "There was always something out of the ordinary about the two of you."

Jane kicks him lightly in the shin. 

"I didn't mean it like it sounded," he protests.

"It's all right," Bran says archly, "there is something out of the ordinary about us." He takes Will's hand. "We're happy."

"Ouch," Barney says. "That's a bit too real."

"Well, I'm delighted for you both," Jane says. Bran smiles at her and Will thinks briefly that all of this might have gone another way entirely, if whatever is extraordinary in Bran were not seeking its match. Jane, thankfully, is lovely but no more than mortal. In another life, she and Bran might have fallen in love, Will thinks, but cannot imagine that life: a Bran who was not raised in isolation, a chance meeting uninspired by a higher fate. 

He studies the Drews as they chatter comfortably with Bran and sip wine. Jane wears the blue-green stone from the Lost Land on a chain around her neck. He wonders what she thinks it means, or if she treasures it only as a gift from Bran long ago, the last summer they had adventures together. Despite her connection to the Lady, she is no match for the boy who was the Pendragon, just as Barney's art is touched by some magic but casts no spell. Simon has always been the most ordinary of them, the type of person the world was saved for. The Drews don't seem to remember the way that Bran does, beyond the finding of the Grail and the manuscript, two mysteries so woven into the fabric of the modern world that there was no danger in recalling them. 

Still, he wonders what they remember, and what they dream about. 

\+ + + +

Just once, Will kneels before Bran. They're in an empty park, before an oak tree crowned with mistletoe.

"Get up," Bran says, but Will just shakes his head smiling and takes Bran's hand.

"Bran," he says softly.

"Yes, yes, yes," Bran says, and pulls Will to his feet and into his arms. Will reaches into his pocket and slips a ring onto Bran's middle finger. It's gold, bronzed with age, and Bran gazes at it with wonder in his eyes.

"It looks antique," he says. "Where did it come from?"

"It's an heirloom," Will tells him, "passed down through the family." It isn't a lie. He visited Merriman and Arthur and all the rest, and although he couldn't find the words to speak of what he wanted to give to Bran, Arthur clapped him on the shoulder and slipped a ring from his own finger, pressing it into Will's palm with a softness in his eyes.

"I saw it in you always, that devotion," he said. "Serve my son well, in whatever shape that takes in your time, as your master and my knights have served me."

"Thank you, my lord," Will said, filled with relief and joy. 

The ring fits Bran perfectly. The three tiny crowns pressed into it glint in the light of the streetlamps. They walk home together, shoulders brushing against each other. 

\+ + + + 

"Will," Bran says, late one night after they've moved into a bigger, nicer flat, a symbol of their established lives. They've both gotten promotions. There are two champagne flutes on the table; the bottle between them sweats, half-empty. Bran is flopped into an armchair, his face flushed and his sweaty forelock rumpled. 

"Yes?" 

"There are a lot of things I don't remember about what happened when we were young," Bran says, "but I remember choosing you, and whatever world had you in it."

Will sits on the arm of Bran's chair and slips his arm around Bran's shoulders. "As would I," he swears. 

Bran tips his face up for a kiss and it feels like magic.


End file.
